


Fuzzy Fleece Pants and Creamsicles

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 3 [22]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:25:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Scully processes over creamsicles and naps





	Fuzzy Fleece Pants and Creamsicles

No sooner had they finished the dishes and left the kitchen that Skinner, moving perceptively slower due to battering bruises and strained ribs, sought out Maggie, who was 2.4 seconds away from nodding off, stress still tightening muscles and making bones ache. Wondering if he’d be able to kneel, he managed one knee, using the other bent for balance, hand on Maggie’s leg, all pretense of lead-in gone as a giddy feeling made his head spin.

Mulder, who had just hit the fifth step down on the staircase, stopped rubbing his newly showered hair dry, momentum nearly carrying him headfirst down the rest. Scully stayed back in the kitchen doorway, not sure the squeezing in her throat was happiness or panic.

Maggie, awake fully in an instant, tilted her head to the slight angle of ‘you are adorable to me’ as he began speaking, “Will you marry me? Today? Tonight? Tomorrow? Sooner rather than later?”

She’d wondered if this would happen tonight, given the bedroom conversation vibe from earlier and Walter cornering Dana in the kitchen under the demands of dirty dishes. Knowing, understanding, mouth tugging into the beginnings of a smile, “why sooner rather than later?”

“Because I want us to spend the rest of our lives being scared together and I think today is as good a time as any to start.”

Feeling from the bottom of her soul and the bottom of her toes what her answer would be, she moved her hands from his neck to delicately cup both ears, moving him closer to kiss both eyebrows, favorite spots, soft lips against untamed rough, “I would love to marry you sooner rather than later as well.”

His grin hurt but grin he did, “I’ll need to get you a ring first.”

“I don’t need a ring but I would like to have the rest of the family here for it.” Tiredness receding to the background for the moment, “unless we want to call them all up right now, get them over here?”

“Maybe we wait a few days? I don’t want to scare the little ones with,” indicating up and down his face with swollen knuckles, “this.”

About to speak, Maggie caught sight of Scully over Skinner’s shoulder and with a motherly silent question of ‘do you need me to come over there?’, “are you all right?”

Deciding it was happiness instead of panic, she swiped the tears obeying gravity and smiled at her mother, “yeah, just …,” by now near laughing at the strangeness of her life, “I’m just happy.”

“Sure?”

“Very sure.”

Mulder came down then, prospect of boss as his woman’s stepfather made his brain bubble slightly, punchy-weird rush of amused confusion ringing his ears. Moving first to Scully, then pulling her forward towards the newly engaged couple, “come on. Gotta congratulate a man willingly entering the fray that is Scully.”

“We’re a fray?”

“Of the grandest kind.”

&&&&&&&&&

Heading home a little while later, Mulder reached across the dark car, gloved hand finding cold thigh, “so, how’s peanut doing?”

“Peanut is about the length of a banana at this point.”

“That’s a damn big peanut then.” Her face didn’t turn up in amusement as he’d hoped but he couldn’t tell her emotions in the dark so he took a stab, rubbing her leg a few times, friction for warmth in the world of physics, “how’s peanut’s mom doing with the whole impending stepfather thing?”

“If I say ‘I’m fine’, you’re going to keep bothering me, aren’t you?”

The ground unsteadied in a heartbeat, Mulder wondering if he should wait or wade in, unpadded and unprepared, “possibly, unless you say you will tell me what’s bothering you soon, just not this very moment.”

“Can I have until we get home and I can get this damn bra off and put on a pair of pants that haven’t been slept in … or actually, a pair of pants meant to be slept in?”

He knew what she needed at this point and quieting, he navigated home, stopping for gas and Creamsicle pushups for late night snacking. Handing her the bag when he got back in, “don’t let those melt. Hang out the window if you have to.”

“I don’t need ice cream, Mulder. It’s freezing out.”

“I need ice cream, though and you know when I start to eat mine, you’ll get all friendly and rub up on me and give me that look and I’ll give you a lick of my pushup and you’ll take a really big lick and I’ll enjoy the tongue action and let you have another lick and soon we’ll be naked and sweaty and the pushup will have melted all over the couch and given that happened last time I got ice cream and you said you didn’t want any, you can’t deny it will totally happen again so I got extra.”

The bursting guffaw from her side of the Jeep told him she was feeling more open to confessions and he wouldn’t have to psychologize it out of her in the dark, which he hated but would do if absolutely necessary.

He gave it another five minutes, just as they were turning into their complex, before, “so, the ice cream still frozen?”

Leaning forward, she squeezed the bag she’d set on the dash by the window, feeling it still solid, “yes, Mulder, your ice cream is still in its native form.”

“Sweet.” The finger poke to his cheek told him volumes and soon, they were upstairs, bra removed, fleece-fuzzy pants on, extra blankets piled as they worked their way through four Creamsicles, Mulder’s hand on her knee, “so, what’s wrong?”

She knew she couldn’t fight him, sitting warm under the influence of home and Mulder, “my first thought when he asked if it would be all right to marry her was, now when we run, she’ll have someone to take care of her.” Eyes tearing immediately, she took a few more licks to gather her nerves, “not if, Mulder, but when. I thought when we have to run. Fuck,” angrily swiping at her cheeks, “fuck fuck fuck fuck … when, Mulder … I thought God-damned when!!”

He did not see that coming.

Processing took a beat or two but before she could start in on another run of flowing expletive, he asked her across the quiet, “you think it’s inevitable?”

Scully stood, took the popsicle right out of his hand and detouring to the kitchen, popped everything in the freezer before returning, crawling on his lap, resting against his chest, cheek to thermal heartbeat, belly creating issues but not negating ones, “I love that Skinner wants to marry my mother and I love that Mom wants to marry Skinner but all it does it make it easier for us to leave.”

Mulder spoke into the crown of her head, hoping words penetrated the fearful recesses of her mind, hoping it wasn’t a lie vibrating his voice, hoping he believed it himself, “we aren’t going anywhere. Peanut upgraded to banana is going to know his grandma and his Uncle Skimmer and all the rest of the fray we talked about earlier.”

Snuggling further in, keeping the beasts at bay with closed eyes and tightened arms, she felt Mulder throw a thick quilted/crocheted/flannelled monstrosity they unanimously believed to be their favorite thing in the universe, over them both, the space around warming as any space between disappeared, “thank you for not promising me anything.”

With a kiss or two, he slid his hands up the back of her shirt, warm ribs bumping fingers, “are you feeling better?”

“No idea but this is nice and I like it here.” Finally looking up at him, kissing his chin, “although I won’t be able to do this much longer. Upgrade is getting bigger by the minute.”

Moving hands down to just below the waist of her pants, “we will figure something else out then but right now, I am enjoying this.”

Scully let out a sigh, “so am I.”


End file.
